Book Review: Repeat

Repeat
By Neal Pollack

My Edition:
ARC e-book, 270 pages
2015, Lake Union Publishing
ISBN: 9781477821336 (paperback)
Expected Publication Date: March 24, 2015

I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

From NetGalley: Through strange metaphysical circumstances, failed screenwriter Brad Cohen finds himself caught in an infinite time loop, forced to relive the first forty years of his life again and again. Each “repeat,” Brad wakes up in the womb on what was supposed to be his fortieth birthday, with full knowledge of what’s come before. In various timelines, he becomes a successful political pundit, a game-show champion, a playboy, and a master manipulator of the stock market, but none of them seem to lead him out of his predicament. As he realizes he wants to break out of the loop and find the love of his life—the one he hadn’t appreciated the first time around—Brad tries, fails, and tries again to escape the eternal cycle of birth and rebirth. Repeat answers the question: If you could live half your life over, would you do things differently?

Top 14 of 2014

I wanted to make a ‘Top’ list for the books I finished in 2014, though I wasn’t sure what the number would be. I ended up with 14 (no rereads) and decided to just go with that! Here are my picks, arranged (loosely) by genre.

Book Review: The Stand

The Stand
By Stephen King

My Edition:
Paperback, 1,439 pages (the uncut edition!)
1990, Anchor Books
ISBN: 9780307743688

From the back of the book: When a man  escapes from a biological testing facility, he sets in motion a deadly domino effect, spreading a mutated strain of the flu that will wipe out 99% of humanity within a few weeks. The survivors who remain are scared, bewildered, and in need of a leader. Two emerge – Mother Abagail, the benevolent 108-year-old woman who urges them to build a community in Boulder, Colorado; and Randall Flagg, the nefarious “Dark Man,” who delights in chaos and violence.

Where to I begin? I first read this book back in high school (before I started keeping track of what books I read, so I’m really not sure when it was) and I remember that I really enjoyed it.

Judging A Book By Its Cover: The City of Dreaming Books

This is my weekly post where I choose to appreciate a book for its cover art or overall design – to me, a well-designed book is like a piece of art. We all judge book covers to some extent. Personally, it’s usually a title/cover combination that pulls me in when I’m browsing in a bookstore. I can’t say that I’ve ever decided against a book with terrible cover art if I liked the sound of the plot, but I have purchased special editions of books, or multiple editions of books based on their cover art. If book covers didn’t matter, publishers (looking at you, Penguin!) wouldn’t put out so many beautiful editions!

Themed Reads: Do You Read Holiday/Seasonal Books?

Since joining Instagram last year? I don’t actually know when… I’ve discovered the wonderful book community, and then I started blogging and sunk even deeper into the world of bookporn, book recommendations, reviews and endless lists. One of the trends I’ve noticed is that people tend to read books related towards a certain season or holiday – obviously, in October the logical choice is horror or creepy-themed books.

Book Review: The Knight

The Knight
By Gene Wolfe

My Edition:
Paperback, 430 pages
2004, Tor
ISBN: 0765313480

From the back of the book: A young man is transported from our world to a magical realm that contains seven levels of reality. Very quickly transformed by magic into a grown man of heroic proportions, he takes the name Sir Able of the High Heart and sets out on a quest to find the sword that has been promised to him, a sword he will get from a dragon, the one very special blade that will help him fulfill his life ambition to become a true knight and a true hero. Inside, however, Able remains a boy, and he must grow in every sense to survive the dangers and delights that lie ahead.

I enjoyed the concept of this story, and before I started reading it, the idea had a lot of potential.

Book Review: Sand

Sand
By Hugh Howey

My Edition:
Paperback, 326 pages
Self-published by Hugh Howey, 2014
ISBN: 9781494904487 (first edition)

Blurb from the back of the book: We live across the thousand dunes with grit in our teeth and sand in our homes. No one will come for us. No one will save us. This is our life, diving for remnants of the old world so that we may build what the wind destroys. No one is looking down on us. Those constellations in the night sky? Those are the backs of the gods we see.

Book Review: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot
By David Shafer

My Edition:
ARC e-book, 432 pages (in hardcover)
2014, Mulholland Books
ISBN: 9780316252638 (hardcover)
Expected publication date: August 5, 2014

I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Blurb from Netgalley: “The Committee, an international cabal of industrialists and media barons, is on the verge of privatizing all information. Dear Diary, an idealistic online Underground, stands in the way of that takeover, using radical politics, classic spycraft, and technology that makes Big Data look like dial-up. Into this secret battle stumbles an unlikely trio: Leila Majnoun, a disillusioned non-profit worker; Leo Crane, an unhinged trustafarian; and Mark Deveraux, a phony self-betterment guru who works for the Committee.”

Book Review: Marina

Marina
By Carlos Ruiz Zafón

My Edition:
ARC Paperback, 326 pages
2014, Little, Brown
ISBN: 9780316044714 (hardcover, via Amazon)

I received this book for free from LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers Program in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Blurb from Amazon: “When Fifteen-year-old Oscar Drai suddenly vanishes from his boarding school in Barcelona, no one knows his whereabouts for seven days and seven nights.

His story begins when he meets the strange Marina while he’s exploring an old quarter of the city. She leads Oscar to a cemetery, where they watch a macabre ritual that occurs on the last Sunday of each month. At exactly ten o’clock in the morning, a woman shrouded in a black velvet cloak descends from her carriage to place a single rose on an unmarked grave.

When Oscar and Marina decide to follow her, they begin a journey that transports them to a forgotten postwar Barcelona–a world of aristocrats and actresses, inventors and tycoons–and reveals a dark secret that lies waiting in the mysterious labyrinth beneath the city streets.”

Book Review: In The Forest Of Harm

In the Forest of Harm
By Sallie Bissell

My Edition:
Paperback, 367 pages
2001, Bantam Books
ISBN: 0553582704

Mary Crow and her friends Alex and Joan are taking a long weekend in the mountains of North Carolina, near where Mary grew up. Mary is a young prosecutor in Georgia and after a particularly popular trial she’s hoping to escape into the wilderness with her friends, and also confront her haunted past. Along the way they run into more than just wildlife – they are pursued by a deranged hunter who gets a thrill from hunting humans and a man obsessed with getting revenge on Mary.  “[The women] will be pushed to the limits of their endurance – and beyond – as they discover their own chilling capacity for loyalty and violence.”